Recent developments in the description of the structural evolution of nuclei invoke the concepts of phase transitions and phase coexistence. New, analytic, parameter‐free symmetries have been developed that describe nuclei at the “critical points” of phase/shape transition regions. The complete nuclear phase diagram at low energy and low angular momentum can be elegantly described in terms of the Landau theory of second order phase transition points and the lines of first order phase transitions that intersect these points. © 2003 American Institute of Physics